One Thing Leads to a Lover (Love and Let Spy #2) - Susanna Craig Page 0,89

in the eye. “I meant what I said, Amanda. I’ll find them.”

“I want to believe you.” Her red-rimmed eyes moved past his, darting up and down the bustling street, as wealthy families prepared for fashionable afternoon outings. “But how will you even know where to look?”

He urged her inside before speaking to the coachman, his voice almost too low to be heard over the clatter of passing carriages. Then he settled across from her as they rolled into motion once more. “I know where we must start.”

Chapter 17

Dazed, Amanda stared out the window but saw nothing of the streets and houses they passed, could not have said whether they were familiar or strange. Somewhere out there, in London or even beyond, her sons were in danger, held at gunpoint by a man—a criminal, perhaps even a spy—who’d been playing a part to insert himself into their lives.

She glanced toward Langley. She might have said the same things of him. He had warned her of the danger surrounding him, but she had been determined to involve herself in the matter of the codebook. To involve herself with a handsome stranger. An adventure, she’d called it.

Oh, what had she done?

She was not sure how far they had traveled when Langley rapped his knuckles on the ceiling of the carriage and ordered the coachman to stop. “We’ll walk from here. Only a few blocks. A crested carriage will draw a great deal of attention in this neighborhood,” he explained to her. “Not all of it welcome.”

Swallowing what she was determined would be the last of her tears, she nodded once to show her understanding and prepared to alight when the coach rolled to a stop. Through the window she glimpsed what appeared to be ordinary houses, not quite as lavish as Grosvenor Square but certainly not the squalor she had steeled herself to expect. The street was surprisingly quiet for afternoon.

“Gaming hells,” Langley explained when he saw her studying the house fronts as he handed her onto the pavement. “Brothels. Pleasure houses that cater to a range of…unusual tastes, shall we say? If it were closer to nightfall, I daresay you might see a few of your neighbors about. Even at this hour, I recommend you keep your head down. It would not do for the Countess of Kingston to be recognized here.”

Mind your step.

She watched her toes peep from beneath her skirts as they hurried along, a part of her as desperate as Lot’s wife to take one last curious look around. But the rest of her was lost in the memory of Jamie and Pip, tearing off their shoes and stockings and racing into the cool river.

Would that be the last time she saw them alive?

“I’ll pay anything,” she murmured, only half speaking to Langley. “Any sort of a ransom.”

He gripped her hand where it lay on his arm. “I suspect they have but one form of currency in mind.”

The codebook, of course. Which Langley had handed over to General Scott. She had been surprised to learn the general had no immediate plan to trade it for his captured agent. Would he be similarly reluctant to use it to buy back her sons?

She blinked furiously against a fresh surge of tears, thick enough that when Langley said, “Here we are,” she could barely make out the sort of doorway through which they passed.

The warm, spicy scents of a hundred varieties of tobacco acted more effectually than smelling salts. With a little jerk of awareness, she began to look about herself, at the wood floor polished with the traffic of many years’ worth of footsteps and the tall windows through which sunlight streamed, setting aglow dozens of glass jars stacked almost to the ceiling. Drawers and shelves, a long wooden counter, and behind it a portly man with brown skin and silvering hair, who was helping a pair of customers.

She recalled having noticed the faintest scent of tobacco clinging to Langley’s coat, that night in the library. But she’d seen no other sign that he smoked. Why on earth were they popping into a tobacco shop, especially at a time like this?

“I—I’ve never been inside a tobacconist’s before,” she said to Langley, who was peering at a selection of enameled snuff boxes in a display cabinet.

“You still haven’t, my dear,” he replied without looking at her, hardly even moving his mouth. “Not exactly. Wait a moment.”

“Be right with you, sir,” the shopkeeper called to them, and Langley raised a finger to the